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But Hohenlohe had received orders to retire northwards in the rear of Brunswick, as soon as he had rallied the detachment of Rüchel near Weimar, and was therefore indisposed to venture on the bold offensive which now was his only means of safety. The respite thus granted was used by the French to hurry every available regiment up the slopes north and west of Jena.
By ten o'clock the fog lifted, and the warm rays of the autumn sun showed the dense masses of the French advancing towards the middle of the plateau. Hohenlohe now saw the full extent of his error and despatched an urgent message to Rüchel for aid. It was too late. The French centre, led by Lannes, began to push back the Prussian lines on the village named Vierzehn Heiligen.
General Ruchel arrived, with his corps that had been uselessly detached, too late to prevent the flight of the Hohenlohe corps, and, making a brave but senseless attack, was wounded and defeated. A similar fate befell the unfortunate Saxons at the Schnecke and the duke of Brunswick at Auerstaedt.
At that time the thin Prussian lines were spread out over a front of eighty-five miles, the Saxons being near Gera, the chief army, under Brunswick, at Erfurth, while Rüchel was so far distant on the west that he could only come up at Jena just one hour too late to avert disaster. And yet with these weak and scattered forces, Prince Hohenlohe proposed a bold move forward to the Main.
And yet there were able generals who could have acted with effect, even if they fell short of the opinion hopefully bruited by General Rüchel, that "several were equal to M. de Bonaparte."
By ten o'clock the fog lifted, and the warm rays of the autumn sun showed the dense masses of the French advancing towards the middle of the plateau. Hohenlohe now saw the full extent of his error and despatched an urgent message to Rüchel for aid. It was too late. The French centre, led by Lannes, began to push back the Prussian lines on the village named Vierzehn Heiligen.
The French, therefore, had a vast mass of seasoned fighters, a good base of operations, and a clear plan of attack. The Prussians, on the contrary, could muster barely 128,000 men, including the Saxons, for service in the field; and of these 27,000 with Rüchel were on the frontier of Hesse-Cassel seeking to assure the alliance of the Elector.
Frederick, when he established the military school of Potsdam, never thought it would lead to the "right shoulder forward" of General Ruchel, and to the teaching that the oblique order is the infallible rule for gaining all battles. How true it is that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous!
The King of Prussia and his troops at first carried out their retreat towards Weimar in reasonably good order, hoping to rally there behind the forces of Prince Hohenlohe and General Ruchel, whom they supposed to have been victorious, while the latter, having been defeated by Napoleon, were for their part, on their way to seek support from the troops led by the king.
This deep-laid scheme deprived the Prussian army of eighteen thousand men, and that on the very moment when defeat and disaster had spread their demoralizing influences through the entire army. Several of their greatest generals were killed, many more dreadfully or fatally wounded: Prince Louis, Ruchel, Schmettau, among the former; the Duke of Brunswick and Prince Henry both severely wounded.
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